He would be a man of a kindly disposition, hospitable, generous at times when needs were put plainly before him, but yet of little imagination, conventional in all his standards, readily influenced outside his business by any chance acquaintance, but nevertheless having his eye on worldly advantage and progress; he would be timid of soul, playing always for safety, taking the easiest way with all emotion, treading always the known road, accepting day by day the creed that was given to him; he would be, outside his brain, of a poor intelligence, accepting the things of art on the standard of popular applause, talking with a stupid garrulity about matters of which he had no first-hand knowledge--proud of his position as a man of the world, wise in the character and moods of men of which, in reality, he knew nothing.

Had he been an Englishman or a German, this would have been all and yet, because he was a Russian, this was not even the beginning of the matter.
I had, as I have already said, in earlier days known him only slightly.

I had once stayed for three days in his country-house and it was here that I had met his wife.

Russian houses are open to all the world and, with such a man as Andrey Vassilievitch, through the doors crowds of men and women are always coming and going, treating their host like the platform of a railway station, eating his meals, sleeping on his beds, making rendezvous with their friends, and yet almost, on their departure, forgetting his very name.
My visit had been of a date now some five years old.

I can only remember that his wife did not make any very definite impression upon me, a little quiet woman, of a short figure, with kind, rather sleepy eyes, a soft voice, and the air of one who knows her housewifely business to perfection and has joy in her knowledge.